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Documentary Theatre

Explore the revolutionary work of Peter Weiss in documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust through theatre. Witness the powerful impact of his productions and delve into the essence of documentary theatre.

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Documentary Theatre

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  1. Documentary Theatre Peter Weiss and Die Ermittlung

  2. Alleinvertretungsanspruch • Claim to exclusive representation of the whole of Germany by various CDU governments, 1949-69. Refusal to acknowledge the existence of the GDR.

  3. Secondary anti-Semitism • Hatred/rejection of Jews not because of anti-Semitic prejudice but because of their status as living reminders of the Holocaust. • “The Germans are not going to forgive us for Auschwitz." Zwi Rix, Israeli psychoanalyst

  4. Peter Weiss, writer and painter (1916-82)

  5. Peter Weiss • born 1916, father Hungarian Jewish textile factory owner who converted to Catholicism, mother a Swiss actress. • 1935 family emigrates to England • 1936-38 studies at academy of art in Prague • 1938 emigration to Switzerland after Nazi troops occupy parts of Czechoslovakia

  6. 1939 emigration to Sweden where he lives until his death • 19.Oct 1965 simultaneous opening of Die Ermittlung in West and East Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Essen, Dresden, Potsdam, Halle, Leipzig and other cities. • Peter Weiss dies May 10, 1982

  7. Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem, 1961

  8. The participants of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial visit Auschwitz

  9. Rolf Hochhuth (1931-) Der Stellvetreter (1963)

  10. Poster for Rolf Hochhuth’s Der Stellvertreter, 1966

  11. Peter Weiss (1916-1982) Die Ermittlung (1965)

  12. Heinar Kipphardt (1922-1982) In der Sache J.Robert Oppenheimer (1964) Bruder Eichmann (1983)

  13. Erwin Piscator before 1930

  14. Bertolt Brecht, 1927

  15. Naturalist Theatre • Anton Chekhov (R, 1860-1904) • Henrik Ibsen (N, 1828-1906) • August Strindberg (S, 1848-1912) • Gerhart Hauptmann (G, 1862-1946)

  16. First Stockholm production of Strindberg’s 1988 play Miss Julie, 1906

  17. Piscator, Stage for Ernst Toller’s Hoppla, wir leben, 1927

  18. Interior Characters are determined by their social background and dominated by their past Focuses on individuals Actor ‘becomes’ character: complete identification Illusionistic Plot (what?) Open stage, exterior Characters are changeable Focuses on political questions Actor ‘presents’ character Anti-Illusionistic (‘alienation effect’, breaking of identification) Breaks with illusion Process (how?) Naturalism vs. Brecht’s stage

  19. Brecht, Dreigroschenoper, 1928

  20. Brecht, Dreigroschenoper

  21. Brecht, The good Person of Sezuan, Spanish Production, 1999

  22. Brecht’s ‘epic’ theatre • Verfremdungseffekte (‘De-Familiarisation’) • Montage principle • Self-reflexive • Self-commenting • No ‘fourth wall’ • The ‘Showing of showing’ • Didactic purpose

  23. Brecht’s Theatre • No empathy, no identification with character on stage • Analysis of emotions • Audience is not ‘immersed’ in events on stage • Audience judges characters on stage • Audience judges situation on stage • ‘Glotzt nicht so romantisch!’

  24. ‘Das dokumentarische Theater ist parteilich’ Peter Weiss, Notitzen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968

  25. Peter Weiss, Notitzen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968 • ‘Das dokumentarische Theater ist ein Theater der Berichterstattung, Protokolle, Akten, Briefe, statistische Tabellen etc.’ • ‘Auswahl, die sich auf ein bestimmtes, zumeist soziales oder politisches Thema konzentriert’. • Montage

  26. Peter Weiss, Notizen zum dokumentarischen Theater, 1968 Documentary theatre is critique of • ‘Verschleierung’, (lit. veiling of reality) • ‘Wirklichkeitsfälschung’ • ‘Lügen’ • of public media – i.e. public media hide their relation to political power and interest groups – pretend to be ‘neutral’

  27. Peter Weiss • ‘Meine Ortschaft’, essay written after visit to Auschwitz, 1964 • ‘Although I did not experience anything here, it remains a place for which I was destined and from which I escaped.’

  28. Peter Weiss, ‘Meine Ortschaft’ • ‘I came here out of free will. I was not unloaded from a train. I was not driven into this area with clubs. [...] A living person has arrived and that which happened here makes itself unaccessible to him.’

  29. Die Ermittlung, Akademie der Künste, East Berlin, 19 Oct, 1965

  30. Die Ermittlung, University of Cologne, Nov/Dec 2002

  31. Peter Weiss, Die Ermittlung • ‘Bei der Aufführung dieses Dramas soll nicht der Versuch unternommen werden, den Gerichtshof […] zu rekonstruieren. Eine solche Rekonstruktion erscheint dem Schreiber des Dramas ebenso unmöglich, wie es die Darstellung des Lagers auf der Bühne wäre.’

  32. The victims’ experience • Absolute alterity – being designated as the totally ‘other’ of humanity (Jews as ‘vermin’ etc) • Absolute heteronomy – literally: being defined by someone else, opposite of autonomy. German: Fremdbestimmung: Göring: ‘Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich’ • Thus marked, being determined for extinction • Jean Améry: Nazi racial laws are a ‘death sentence’ (in: At the mind’s limits)

  33. Peter Weiss, Die Ermittlung • Subtitle: Ein Oratorium in 11 Gesängen • Look up ’oratorio’ (musical encyclopaedia or wikipedia) • Look up Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Commedia (e.g. wikipedia)

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